Team GO&FUN Honda Gresini riders Alvaro Bautista and Scott Redding completed today the first of three days of night-time testing at Losail circuit, which will host the opening round of the campaign later this month.
After the excellent results achieved at Sepang, under the floodlights Alvaro Bautista continued his working program on the Honda RC213V, looking for important confirmations in completely different conditions from those encountered in Malaysia. The Spaniard completed an impressive 52 laps over the session, setting the fourth fastest time of the day in 1’56”081. His team-mate Scott Redding, at his very first experience aboard a MotoGP bike on this track, resumed his work on the bike starting from the good base reached during last February, spending this first day mostly on front end set-up adjustments: the 21-year-old rookie ended the day in tenth with a personal best of 1’57”922.
The second day of the Test is scheduled to run from 4pm-11pm local time tomorrow.
Alvaro Bautista (1'56"081 - 52 LAPS)
“After the good test at Sepang we were very confident ahead of this test in Qatar, even though I knew that this track would have been difficult for us, because in the last two years we have always found some problems. Unfortunately, some problems were still here today, especially with regard to the front end. I’m struggling to stop the bike under braking and on corner entry my feeling is not so good . Regarding the rear end, we confirmed that the new Showa shock absorber works better than the previous one, but tomorrow we will also have to work in this area in order to find more grip. All in all, we remain confident: the track today was already in good condition, better than many other times, therefore lap times are already dropping quickly. Tomorrow we want to improve the bike to try to make the most of it”.
Scott Redding (1'57"922 - 38 LAPS)
“Today it was really nice to ride my bike on a new track; also the conditions were pretty good compared to Malaysia, where there is a lot of humidity and really high temperatures. Now I feel good with my bike and I was happy with today’s testing session. We need to improve a little bit the feeling with the front end, because when I went faster I started to ‘push’ the front a lot, but we will work on this area tomorrow. Engine power is still not really good, but the situation is not so bad compared with the other ‘Open’ Honda machines. Brakes worked well from the first exit, so I’m happy with them. Tomorrow we will focus on improving the feeling with the front, and we will try to close the gap to the first Honda RCV1000R”.
Go&Fun Honda Gresini Press Release
